


Brooklyn 3722

by CloudAtlas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, Daily Bugle, Epistolary, F/M, Friendship, Personal Ads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6027112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Not As Lonely As You'd Think, 32, do I look like I need one of these, Katie? WLTM someone who isn't Kate, Contact: Brooklyn 3722.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Based on the prompt: Natasha's runs a personals column and decides she really likes Clint's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brooklyn 3722

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **scribblemyname** 's prompt on the be_compromised Valentines Mini Promptathon. Beta'd by the wonderful **geckoholic**.

Natasha got her BA in English and her MA in Journalism. She graduated with honours in both. She got a good job with the Daily Bugle straight out of college and focused her energy on think pieces about minority rights, women’s rights and the shitty way the government treats both. She’s happy with her job; she’s got people talking about the taxing of feminine hygiene products. She’s helped lobby the government about diversity in film and television. She’s a fucking  _spokesperson_  for feminism in the media.

And, since Sue went on maternity leave two months ago, she’s been organising the personal ads. Apparently the editors think ‘women’s issues’ equals ‘lonely hearts’, which solidifies her opinion that they’re sexist morons.

Now, Natasha doesn’t have any particular issue with personal ads; if you want to use them, then you are most welcome. However, she has a piece on diversity within government positions which she’s been working on for the past few weeks and the time taken away from it for these fucking ads means it’s taken a week longer than it should and probably won’t see print for another week again. 

“And some of these ads!” she complains to Steve, the chief arts correspondent. “Where do these people come from? Like this one,” she pulls up an ad on her emails. “This was sent today and believe me, it is far from unusual.”

She clears her throat. “50-something chain-smoking, unemployed screenwriter seeks 20-something muse for dutch dinners and possible living arrangement (your place) – that’s in brackets – Great career-expanding possibilities! – that bit has an exclamation point – Blondes preferred.”

Steve looks vaguely disgusted. “That sounds… healthy.”

“Like, I’m all for finding like-minded souls and all the jazz but – sometimes you’re just not sure they  _should_.”

Steve smiles. “I’m sure you could word a personal ad that is both true and mildly terrifying. Like, ‘30-something feminist journalist who enjoys taking down the patriarchy seeks 30-something man who shuts up when told’.”

Natasha snorts.

“Hey,” Steve says. “You gotta admit, that does sound like you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, clicking through to see if any other particularly interesting ads have been sent in. “Don’t you have pretentious artists to write about?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’ll see you at Joey’s after work, yeah?”

“After all this?” she says, looking up. “Damn right you will. I’ll need alcohol to drown out the loneliness and spelling mistakes.”

Steve’s laugh echoes in the office as he leaves.

Urgh. There’s just so  _many_  of them. Putting the page together doesn’t take all that long, but you have to sift through them all to find the non-weird ones that the paper will actually run. Everything else she can dump straight into the website, but for this bit she actually has to  _work_.

“No, no, no,  _God_ no, maybe, yes, ha in your dreams, oh – “

She pauses her relentless flicking though of emails. _Not As Lonely As You’d Think, 32,_ one reads, _do I look like I need one of these, Katie? WLTM someone who isn’t Kate, Contact: Brooklyn 3722._

She snorts. If nothing else, it’d make a funny addition to the print edition. She moves it into the ‘yes’ folder.

 

Over the next two weeks, two more personal ads from Brooklyn 3722 are emailed to the paper and Natasha runs both of them. They’re like a tiny soap opera being played out within the columns of the personal ads.

 _Dumb-Dog Owner, 32, likes: arrows, pizza, dogs, hotties. WLTM any of the above for pizza and maybe more. Pizza and pizza!_ makes her laugh. It also makes her crave pizza like nobody’s business, and she forces Steve to buy her some on the way back from interviewing Jan van Dyne about her first major American retrospective.

She then proceeds to eat the whole thing in front of him, moaning as pornographically as possibly while Steve tries to steal pepperoni and gets stabbed with a pen for his efforts.

 _Excellent Taste in Friends, 32, likes: yelling at Kate for ads like these. WLTM someone who likes Chinese pizza sandwiches_ , however, makes her reassess the mental state of Brooklyn 3722. Pizza sandwiches sort of make Natasha want to set fire to all pizza ever in an effort to make sure that particular abomination never occurs again.

“I don’t even know how this guy’s friend manages to get these posted. You’d think he’d stop it happening somehow.”

“Maybe he’s shit at computers,” Steve says, shovelling impressive amounts of fried chicken into his mouth. “Also, you can’t still be talking about this guy. It’s been three weeks since the first one.”

“They’re interesting,” she defends, because she’ll be damned if she lets on how much more interesting these few ads have made this part of her job. “It’s like a little soap opera for the classifieds.”

Steve rolls his eyes. 

“You think you’re subtle,” he says, “but you’re not fooling anyone.”

 

_FUCK YOU KATE, 32, wants Kate to STOP PLACING ADS LIKE THESE. WLTM hitman to take out annoying rich best friends. Contact: Satan_

That’s probably Brooklyn 3722 right? It seems more the plausible. Two of the previous three mentioned a Kate and being annoyed at her. To be honest, this Kate sounds like good fun. Would it be strange if she contacted Brooklyn 3722 to ask to hang out with her? Probably.

She can definitely publish that one. She’ll just have to star out the ‘fuck’.

 

_Knows Better Than You, 26, WLTM hot girl 25-35 willing to put up with BS. Vetting for a friend. And by vetting I mean – shit gotta go. Contact: n/a_

That sounds... well. 

Natasha chews the end of her pen until Sam from the sports desk throws an eraser at her. She’s trying to break the habit and Sam is the first line of attack.

She wants to believe that this is connected to Brooklyn 3722. She wants to believe that this is Kate.

Natasha puts the ad in the ‘yes’ pile. She may be a little over invested in this now.

 

_Hot Blond, 32, more intelligent than he looks, WLTM woman who can stop him moping. Contact: Brooklyn 3722_

Natasha smiles at the screen. 

So. Brooklyn 3722 is male, blond and at least hot enough that his best friend is willing to use it in his favour. Does ‘more intelligent than he looks’ mean that he’s actually very intelligent, or just that he’s not a dumb jock?

Questions questions.

 

_Will You Kindly Fuck Off, 32, WL the paper to stop printing these cos seriously I get so many weird phone calls now. Contact: not me_

Definitely going on the ‘yes’ pile. Starring out the ‘fuck’... _now_.

 

_Concerned Friend, 26, WL you to just try I swear it’s not as bad as it seems and you might meet someone amazing. Contact: 3722_

“They’ve dropped the ‘Brooklyn’ part now,” she says one day. “I guess the annoying calls got too much.”

Steve gives her an incredulous look. “You’re fucking obsessed.”

“Says you. Don’t try and tell me that you’ve not been following it too. Normally it’s just the arts pages on your desk, but I’ve  _seen_  Lifestyle hiding next to MoMA tickets. You can’t hide from me, Steve Rogers!”

 

_Longsuffering, 32, wishes he’d never given you his laptop password, WLTM computer savvy someone who can fix this for me. Contact: n/a_

“You know there’s a tumblr for this?” Sam says one day.

“And fanfiction,” adds Steve. “Brooklyn 3722 meets various wonderful people through the Daily Bugle’s classifieds. It’s surprisingly popular.”

Natasha gives him a suspicious look. “How do you  _know_ that?”

 

_Stubborn Asshole, 26, just write an ad and I’ll leave you alone. Ladies, he’s a good guy really. Contact: 3722_

Is it bad that Natasha is seriously contemplating calling Brooklyn 3722? She thinks it might be. Mostly because it’s weird, but partly because she’s in charge of publishing all these classifieds and that definitely wouldn’t endear her to him.

Fucks sake, she thinks. She doesn’t even  _know_  this guy. Why does she care if he likes her or not?

She moves the ad into the ‘yes’ pile anyway.

 

_Knows You Too Well, 26, I DARE YOU, Contact: 3722_

Ooh, this is getting interesting.

 

_Annoyed Man With Terrible Friends, 32, likes: pizza, dogs, pizza dogs, archery, good humour WLTM woman 25-35 for friendship, hanging out and maybe more, Contact: Brooklyn 3722_

“Do it,” says Sam from his desk across from hers.

“No.”

“You know the number. Do it.

“Shut up Sam, no.”

“Then I’m gonna do it.” He picks up his desk phone (who still uses in landlines in this day and age?) and dials through to the switchboard.

“Yeah, Darcy, can I have an outside line please? ... Sure; Brooklyn 3722.”

Natasha lunges for the phone, hitting the switchhook and cutting him off before the call connects.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she says, as menacing as she can make it, but Sam just grins at her like he’s won, as from behind her she hears Bucky, Steve’s best friend and the newspaper’s sports editor, say, “Yeah, hi. I have a friend; stacked, redhead, firecracker.”

Natasha’s eyes widen – mostly that Bucky would be  _so fucking conniving_ , but also partially at being called  _stacked_. He is  _so dead_  – and she scrambles out from behind her desk to lunge at where he’s sat on Peter Parker’s perpetually empty desk. 

“I’m answering your classified on her behalf.”

“No you’re fucking not,” Natasha growls and she tries to wrestle the phone from Bucky’s grip. But Bucky is taller and surprisingly built, and Natasha might be athletic and sneaky but Bucky is  _strong_.

“No, I’m not shitting you,” Bucky says. But he’s much less composed now and Natasha is  _this close_  to getting the phone out of his hand.

“Gotcha,” she exclaims, triumphant, before hurling Bucky’s phone across the office to land squarely in Coulson’s trashcan. 

“You owe me a new phone,” he says mildly.

“You called me  _stacked_  to a  _fucking stranger_. I fucking well do not.”

 

_Annoyed Man With Terrible Friends, 32, will you leave me alone now Kate? Contact: no one_

“Okay I’ve got something for you,” Darcy says, sitting down on Natasha’s desk with a fucking cocktail like this is a bar and not a reputable newspaper office. “One, read this: Brooklyn 3722 fanfiction. Well written and actually erotic.”

Natasha gives Darcy her patented dead eyes stare, but somehow she’s is immune to it so she just breezes on.

“Two, pay attention; Hamptons 1317.”

“What’s Hamptons 1317?”

Darcy shoves a newspaper under her nose. It’s open to the classifieds but it’s about three months old.

“This isn’t helping me,” Natasha says, annoyed.

Darcy sighs like Natasha is the most trying person she’s had to deal with today (which Natasha knows isn’t true because it’s Friday and that means that both Person Who Thinks Aliens Live Among Us and Person Who Can Prove The Moon Landings Didn’t Happen will have rung today) and taps at a particular ad that she’s circled in red ink.

 _Bisexual F, 26,_  it reads, _likes archery, feminism, shit 80s action films and pizza. WLTM like-minded individual for carnival visits and maybe sexytimes. Contact: Kate, Hamptons 1317. No weirdos, I know krav maga._

“What am I looking at?”

“This, my friend,” Darcy says smugly, “is Brooklyn 3722’s best friend Kate. You published this ad alongside his first one three months ago.”

“Right.” Natasha draws out the word so it has about four more syllables than it needs. “How do you even know that? And what do you want me to do? Ring her?”

Darcy snorts. “Detective work: twenty-six, archery, pizza, Kate, and Hamptons, which makes her rich. And no. I did that ages ago.”

“You answered a classified?” Natasha says, slightly shocked and in a way that hopefully conveys that Natasha was in no way contemplating the same thing.

“Yes? She sounded like fun and I like sexytimes. Anyway, I was about three weeks too late – I was fact checking when I came across it – so she’d already found someone. My point is; we’re BFFs now. So I am going to do you a favour.”

Darcy pulls out her phone, and Natasha doesn’t even have the time to get further than “Darcy, no,” before the call goes though and Darcy is being way too chirpy and saying; “Hi, Katie, you free to Facetime?”

Natasha groans and drops her head onto her desk. She wishes Sue was back at work already. This shit would never have happened if she’d just been writing angry feminist think pieces.

“Nah,” she hears Darcy say, “I’m just here with my bro Nat.”

Darcy comes round her desk and unceremoniously pulls back her chair far enough so she can sit on her lap.

“Say hi Nat,” Darcy trills, pulling her phone out far enough that she can see the screen. “This is Kate.” 

Shit. 

“And  _this –_ ” 

There’s a fucking  _guy_  there. Shit, shit, shit. 

“ – is Clint Barton, known to you as Brooklyn 3722.”

Clint Barton is hot and blond and  _looks_  like an archer if his  _fucking glorious arms_  are anything to go by.

“Holy crap,” he says, and his voice is deep and disbelieving and somehow really attractive.

“Nat here,” Darcy continues, “has had a little bit of a fixation on Brooklyn 3722. My friend Bucky tried to help out, but he’s not as sneaky as me.”

Clint Barton’s eyes widen further. 

“Shit,” he says, with a hint of wonder in his tone. “Stacked, redhead, firecracker. Katie, the dude wasn’t lying.”

Calling Natasha stacked when she’s sat next to Darcy is laughable. But still, Natasha is going to  _kill_  Bucky.

“So,” Darcy continues, blithely ignoring Natasha’s stunned expression and Clint’s guppy face, “what I suggest is  _you_ , Clint Barton, come over to Joey’s on West 57th for 6pm tonight. _I’ll_ make sure Natasha is there. And hey, Kate, you come too. I still owe you, like, seven cocktails.”

 

Darcy and Steve have to almost physically drag Natasha to Joey’s come 6 o’clock. Not because she thinks Clint Barton is unattractive. Not even that she doesn’t want to meet him, not really. It’s more, his classifieds did get steadily more and more irate, but they were funny so she printed them anyway. He even complained in one about all the weird phone calls he was getting. Shit, there’s was a  _tumblr_  and  _fanfiction_ (it wasn’t common, but it was there.  _Yes_  she looked it up) and in realistic terms, she’s the reason that all happened.

It was going to be super awkward to explain that.

But Darcy hasn’t even let her voice her reasons, she’d just grabbed her face and looked into her eyes in an almost confrontational way and said, “Nat, tell me you don’t want to meet that really fucking hot guy.”

And Natasha couldn’t say no; not when he had arms like that.

So here she is, confronted by Kate Bishop of Personal Ad Arguments fame who tilts her head over towards the bar and smirks like this was her plan all along.

Clint Barton looks like the poster boy for ‘shy hot guy’. Emphasis on hot. He’s wearing dark jeans and a purple t-shirt and, when he spots her, he gets this strange wary-hopeful expression on his face and Natasha can’t help but blurt out, “I run the personal ads for the Daily Bugle. I printed all your ads.”

Several different emotions all flit across his face, one after the other – surprise, indignation, anger, confusion, wariness – before settling on carefully neutral.

“It’s not – it’s not my usual job. I do social issues. It’s just Sue who usually does it is on maternity leave and the Lifestyle editor is the kind of guy who thinks only women and gay men can do that sort of thing and I was the only person who’s workload was considered ‘light enough’ – other than Phil in current affairs, but he’s a  _guy_  so obviously it’s beneath him – so I got landed with it and – “ Natasha realises too late that she’s rambling and cuts herself off with a rather lame, “and yours made me laugh.”

“I had to unhook my phone because of you,” Clint says after a moment, and Natasha can’t really tell if he’s angry or if he’s just stating a fact.

“Sorry.”

He grins, sudden and wide. “Nah,” he waves his hand dismissively. “I got some chick to fix my laptop, another guy who brought me gourmet pizzas  _that are amazing_ and a bunch of people invited me to their BBQ just because.”

“In amongst the weirdos?”

“After the last ad, there was a guy who asked if I was into scat play,” Clint says seriously, and Natasha’s eyebrows rise. “I had to Google it. Then I unhooked my phone.”

“Smart move.”

“I thought so,” Clint agreed. “Now, how about I buy you a drink, you tell me what social issues you specialise in writing about and then we go fuck in the bathroom?”

His words are flippant, but Natasha can see hesitancy in his face. Realistically – logically – a come on like this shouldn’t really do it for her. It’s crass and presumptuous for starters, and smacks of overconfidence. But then, sometimes that’s just what she wants, plus Clint’s feigned overconfidence is undermined somewhat by his bashful smile and the fact that he’s fiddling with the label of his beer.

He has nice hands. And nice shoulders and fucking awesome arms. Natasha sort of wants to climb him like a tree.

“Double whiskey, neat,” she says. “And I specialise in diversity and feminist critiques, and you’ve never been here before, have you? Because there is no way I’m fucking anyone in the bathrooms here. They’re disgusting.”

“But you’re potentially open to fucking at some point?”

His tone is hopeful and goddammit but it’s kind of really cute.

She smirks at him.

“We’ll see.”

 

Natasha wakes up the next morning in a sea of blue sheets she knows not to be her own. She’s warm, naked and currently wrapped up in the glorious arms of Clint Barton. One bicep has a bite mark on it. She smiles to herself as she remembers putting it there.

Natasha contemplates getting up and leaving. She contemplates getting up and making breakfast. She contemplates making _Clint_ get up to make breakfast. Then she loses a good few – very enjoyable – minutes to the myriad of wonderful ways in which she could wake Clint up. But in the end all her idle thoughts are for nothing, because Clint shifts against her, tightening an arm around her waist before smearing a, “good morning,” into the skin of her neck and sliding his free hand between her legs. The entire movement is stuck somewhere between being cocky and questioning, and Natasha had no idea cocky vulnerability was a turn on for her but  _oh God_  it is.

He’s gentle but firm, and he pants into her neck and she squirms in his arms, pressing back into his rapidly growing erection.

“You stole my idea,” she pants once the fizz of orgasm has faded.

“Mmm,” he hums, turning and pulling her on top of him. “I’m sure you can think of another one.”

In fact, Natasha can think of several and, for the first time since it happened, she’s happy her douchebag boss made her look after the fucking personal ads.


End file.
